As a recent transplant from Oakland, California, I was drawn to Portland because I was told this small town has a big heart that beats to the rhythm of justice and B’tzelem Elohim, the Jewish belief that all life is sacred. Oakland neighbors the first two cities in America to divest from Israel this year: Richmond and Hayward, California. I’m proud that Portland, my new home, is now part of that group.

As we approach the holiest time of the Jewish year, our high holidays, we are asked to reflect on the last year and begin the process of Teshuva – returning to our values, owning where we’ve strayed, and repairing harm done. Since last Rosh Hashanah, more than 40,000 Gazans have been murdered and almost 100,000 injured with little to no health care options to seek as hospitals and health care workers have repeatedly been targeted by Israeli airstrikes. On Sept. 4, many opposed to this divestment resolution claimed that Hamas, rather than Israel, is responsible for the slaughter of Palestinian civilians by starting this cycle of bloodshed with their attacks on Oct. 7. When I hear this, I can’t help but say to myself, “Do you think Hamas just fell out of a coconut tree?” There is no way forward if we do not honestly look at history and the full scope of harm done. My Jewish traditions teach me this.

Portland City Council’s decision to become the fourth U.S. city – first on the East Coast – to divest from Israel is an act of Teshuva. It is a small step toward an acknowledgment of harm and a commitment to Portland’s values by directing city funds toward local life-sustaining initiatives rather than companies complicit in the dispossession and genocide of the Palestinian people. I’m not under any impression that this resolution on its own will change the material conditions on the ground for Palestinians, and so I sincerely hope that it can create a precedent of divestment on the East Coast and beyond. Economic pressure on unjust systems can and has led to change, as the South Africa apartheid divestment campaigns of the 1960s-1980s showed us. Thank you, Portland, for showing me that you do believe in B’tzelem Elohim.

As we carve a path toward a world of more humanity that does not yet exist, one thing feels very clear to me. We must begin to stretch the capacities of our hearts to hold many truths and pains. I, like you I hope, hold many griefs. When I speak of Israel’s decades of atrocities, ethnic cleansing, illegal settlements and systematic dehumanization of the Palestinian people, I am not praising the murders of more than 1,000 human beings on Oct. 7. The loss of those lives makes me ache in sorrow. When I say that I want the thousands of Palestinians detained in Israel without being given a fair trial, including many children, to be able to return to their loved ones, that does not mean that I do not also wish the same fate for the remaining hostages in Gaza. I want every one of them to return home safely.

Six hostages were killed last week – six entire universes gone. And also since last week more than 100 Palestinians have been killed, eight of whom were in line to buy bread in front of a UNRWA school shelter in Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp. I am saddened that I have not seen reporting on these deaths as I have for the six hostages killed. Every human life has the same value, and speaking to the disproportionate deaths and lack of media coverage does not diminish the pain and loss that many Jewish people feel deeply, including myself.

I disagree, as some expressed during the City Council meeting, that this resolution inflames divisiveness or antisemitism. On the contrary, it is moments like this that I have felt the most mutual respect and affinity between my Jewish community and our Palestinian friends and partners. We know that our fights are not against each other but rather against Zionism as an occupying force and white supremacy that equally feeds antisemitism, racism and islamophobia. I am proud to be a Jewish Portlander today, one who knows that solidarity keeps me safe, not violence perpetrated by the state of Israel against the Palestinian people.

Ultimately Israeli and Palestinian fates are bound up together. Until all people who live between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River can live free and dignified lives on that land, I will continue to do everything in my power to cut off all American funding to and investments in companies that participate in Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people. I hope you do the same.